1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an imaging-observation apparatus which shoots an image of a portion of an organism such as its surface and neighboring region and which displays such an image shot.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as more and more people have been paying increasing attention to how to improve or maintain their beautiful appearance, there have been growing demands for instruments or devices for beauty treatments. Among other things, when some person tries to sell a cosmetic product or beauty treatment device to someone else, it has become even more important to observe and analyze the latter person's skin state on the spot.
Observation of skin state includes observing the skin surface texture or wrinkles and observing the subcutaneous tissue at spots, for example. To observe the subcutaneous tissue accurately, skin surface information and subcutaneous tissue information are suitably obtained separately. It is known that in order to get such observation done, the skin surface may be irradiated with predetermined polarized light and shot through a polarizer. Then, an image, of which the majority is surface reflected light components with surface information, and an image, of which the majority is internally reflected light components with subcutaneous tissue information, can be shot separately.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-88599 (which will be referred to herein as “Patent Document No. 1” for convenience sake) discloses a camera which includes a polarized light source for observing the skin surface and another polarized light source for observing subcutaneous tissue in order to change the modes of observation from observing the texture by monitoring the light reflected from the skin surface into observing spots or dullness by monitoring the light reflected from under the skin surface, and vice versa. This camera sequentially shoots a skin surface observed image, a subcutaneous tissue observed image, and a natural light image by turning ON those light sources sequentially and by turning them ON simultaneously.
Meanwhile, in the field of medical treatments, by irradiating an organism with illuminating light and by imaging the light that has been reflected from the organism, information about any change in the color at the surface of the organism or its structural change is obtained, thereby diagnosing his or her diseased region. In making such a diagnosis, shooting sessions are often carried out with not only natural light but also polarized light as well in order to diagnose the disease more easily.
For instance, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-24140 (which will be referred to herein as “Patent Document No. 2” for convenience sake) discloses a system which sequentially irradiates a subject with multiple polarized light beams with mutually different polarization states and sequentially images reflected parts of those polarized light beams one after another, thereby monitoring the status of the diseased region. In this system, a polarization property image with a predetermined polarization property is generated based on a plurality of images that have been shot, and some portion of that polarization property image which is specified by reference to the information on a parameter table that has been prepared in advance is highlighted by pseudo color display, for example.
And Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-97987 (which will be referred to herein as “Patent Document No. 3” for convenience sake) discloses a method for generating an image in which the components of the light that has been reflected from the internal tissue are enhanced by adding or subtracting the pixel values of multiple images that have been shot with the polarized light conditions changed and synthesizing together the images that have been shot under different polarized light sources.